disuse and decay, surviving the savage destructiveness of Jutes, the devastation of Danish invaders, the innovating rigour of Norman architects, and the apathy of succeeding centuries.” Setting our backs to the older we turn to later days and to-day, as we walk home to the city. The sun is setting; the sky panoplied in gold; lights shine out here and there from homely windows; workmen tramp to their rest; there is a gentle melancholy reigning over all things, as there ever is in ancient cities; above all broods the Cathedral, its splendid tower, steeped in the rays of the departing day, looking down as though it were no handiwork of mortal man, but some creation of Nature, immutable, inscrutable, full of majesty, of power, of everlasting dignity.
A CANTERBURY ROUNDABOUT
There are many delightful places round about Canterbury, beautiful to look on and historically of the greatest interest. We set out of a morning along Northgate, passing the fine half-timbered gateway of St John’s Hospital, which was founded by Lanfranc, in the year 1084, for the comfort of the aged who were poor and infirm. The entrance is a most beautiful piece of fifteenth century timber-work, one of the most delightful “bits” in Canterbury, and the enclosure within is a veritable harbour of refuge from the noise and the turmoil without. The west door of the chapel is Norman, and there are other fragments which will interest the architect. In the hall is preserved a sixteenth century account-book, from which we quote this curious item: “Note that Laurence Wryght was admonished the xxviij daye of Maye the fyrst yere of Kyng Edwarde the vjth for sclanderyng of the prior Christofer Sprott and the pryors syster Margaret Forster for dwellyng yn to tenements under on rofe. Wyttnesses brother Wyllyam Pendleton, brother Wyllyam Kytson”; one more sad proof that brethren do not always dwell together in unity or amity.
On, past the depressing range of barracks and along the straight, level road to Sturry. Esturei, the island in the Stour, is a pleasing, old-fashioned village, with ample accommodation for the refreshment of man and beast. The church of St Nicholas stands guarded by a grove of chestnut-trees, and hard by are the remains, including the gate, of Sturry Court, dating from the reign of James I. Turning to the right just beyond the Welsh Harp Inn—how does such a sign come here?—we reach in a few minutes Fordwich bridge, beneath which flows the narrow waters of the Stour; once on a time the scene of busy traffic, for we are looking on the ancient port of Canterbury. How changed the scene, now so quiet and out-of-the-world, since the days when this was a tidal water, since an arm of the sea covered the valley of the Stour as far up as Chilham, beyond Canterbury. Up to Fordwich—possibly Fiord Wich—in olden days large vessels could be navigated, hence the importance of the place for trading purposes. Domesday Book records that there were seven fisheries and ten mills here—a busy, thriving place, now the home of memories. The Abbey of St Augustine owned the manor here, by gift from Edward the Confessor and others, and the monks and the townspeople do not appear to have lived upon the best of terms. The monks of Christ Church also traded here, and their presence does not appear to have made for peace. Fordwich was a “limb” of the Sandwich Cinque Port, on the same river but fourteen miles farther down the stream, sharing with that ancient and once glorious town the ship service, so valuable to the kings of England. Until 1861 Fordwich possessed a corporation, the first mayor in 1292 being one John Maynard. The government consisted of the mayor, twelve jurats, the freemen, and various officers, whose powers included those of life and death. The works of Nature and of man have combined to destroy the commercial prosperity of the erstwhile port; the Wantsum—which cut off Thanet from the mainland—has ceased to be; the Stour has silted up, to the detriment also of decayed Sandwich; and Canterbury is connected with the sea by railways to Whitstable, Faversham, and Dover.
Therefore as we stand upon this little bridge of stone, though the prospect has many charms it is tinged with the sadness of decay and death. There is the ancient crane of wood, now usually idle; and the river-banks once so busy are now deserted save by occasional merry-makers and water parties. Much water has flowed beneath this bridge since Fordwich was a thriving sea-port, but less and less year by year—the tide of prosperity has ebbed with the tides of the sea; all that is left is but a memory and a few pieces of wreckage on the shore of time.
Passing over the bridge we walk through the deserted village, for such it appears to be at this hour of noon, until we come to the sign of the Fordwich Arms, where we may rest and restore. Opposite the inn is the Town Hall, of which we have heard so much that its diminutive size is somewhat startling. It is a square building with high-pitched, tiled roof; the upper story is half timbered, overhanging the lower of mingled stone and brick. Ascending a steep, short flight of modern wooden stairs, we enter the quaint Council Chamber—quaint in its tininess as compared with the matters of import once enacted therein; it is little more than thirty feet long by twenty-three broad, and is lighted by three windows of lattice. The wall opposite to the entrance is wainscoted, in the centre being the mayor’s seat, with those of the jurats on either hand; and, above, the royal arms and those of the Cinque Ports, with the legend below—“1660. Love and Honour the Truth”; and we will trust that the mayor and jurats did so, for their powers were great. Across the room runs a heavy black beam, on either end of which stand two gaudy drums, once beaten by the heavy hands of the pressgang; and in the centre the village cucking-stool, the use of which is deemed no longer necessary. It is said—with what want of truth who shall decide?—that a sort of cupboard high up in the wall, was used as a drying loft for the unfortunate ladies after they had been immersed. Women had more wrongs than rights in those forceful days. On the ground floor is the lock-up, a chilly place, now a mere curiosity; once a very stern reality to debtors, poachers and greater malefactors.
Turning back from the river, we proceed to the church, surrounded by a grassy graveyard; there is not much to detain us here, the building being chiefly interesting for its old-world air. There is the pew once used by the mayor and another for the singers and players, who aforetime sat aloft in the gallery beneath the tower; a Norman font and a fine tomb, which possibly was that of the founder of the church. In the woodwork of the gallery at the west end are two shelves, upon which were placed the loaves of bread to be distributed on a Sunday to the poor, under the bequest of Thomas Bigge.
We can return to Canterbury by another and more pleasant route than that by which we came. Following the road uphill, past the pretty cottage where we obtained the keys of the church, we turn to the right, so gaining a cleanly field path. Before us rise low grassy knolls; behind us, screened by trees, the spire of Fordwich church and the gables of its houses and cottages; on our right hand the broad, flat valley of the Stour, the Sturry Road marked by the straight line of trees. Bobbing up and down goes the path, so that we scarcely note that we are gradually ascending, until suddenly we find ourselves high up, looking down on the outskirts of Canterbury; beneath us the trumpets ring out from the barracks notes of modernity and echoes of old fighting days; before us soars the tower of the Cathedral, shrouded—when we saw it—in mists and wisps of falling rain; on our left the level ground where the cavalry exercise. Along this track for sure, when in old days the valley was a swamp, many a weary traveller has toiled from the coast unto the old city; how their hearts must have leaped within them as they saw rising there the Angel Steeple, perhaps bathed in the rays of the setting sun, perchance veiled in sorrowful clouds. As did we, so must they have passed on down the slope to St Martin’s Church, and so to the city gate, now vanished. It is but a short walk this which we have taken, short in the distance we traverse, but it takes us back to dim, far gone ages; now the train, with its pennant of white, thunders along the valley, where of old coracles have floated, and we return from our visit to a village that may be called a mile-stone on the road of history, to a great cathedral city, where Britons shivered in mud and wicker hovels on the reedy islets of the Stour.